What I learned from 50 developers about staffing agencies

Why I started asking

Before I launched InitLabs, I spent two months doing something that most staffing agency founders never do: I asked the people we are supposed to serve what they actually want. I reached out to 50 developers across the Netherlands. Some were freelancers. Some were in permanent roles. Some had worked through staffing agencies before. Some had sworn them off entirely. I asked them all the same core question: what is broken about IT staffing?

The conversations were honest, sometimes brutally so. What I heard shaped every decision I have made about how InitLabs operates. Here are the patterns that emerged.

Complaint 1: "They label me wrong and I can not fix it"

This came up in almost every conversation. A developer with deep expertise in cloud architecture gets labeled as a "backend developer" because that is what the agency's categories allow. A full-stack engineer with 4 years of intense startup experience gets filed as "medior" because the system says senior starts at 5 years.

One developer told me: "I spent 30 minutes explaining my actual skills to a recruiter. Then I saw the profile they sent to the client. It said 'medior Java developer.' That is not who I am." The frustration was palpable. These are people who have invested years building specific, nuanced skill sets, and they get reduced to two words that some recruiter picked from a dropdown.

At InitLabs, we build skill profiles with the developer, not for them. Every profile is reviewed by the candidate before it goes anywhere. If they say "that description does not capture what I do," we rewrite it until it does.

Complaint 2: "I have no idea what the client pays"

The margin question came up constantly. Developers know that the agency charges the client more than the developer receives. That is the business model, and most accept it. What they do not accept is secrecy. "Just tell me the margin," one freelancer said. "If it is fair, I will not care. But the fact that you hide it makes me think it is not fair."

Multiple developers described discovering, sometimes accidentally, that their agency was charging double what the developer received. One found out during a casual lunch with a client manager who mentioned the rate. The betrayal of trust was more damaging than the actual number.

This is why InitLabs operates with transparent margins. Every developer who works with us knows exactly what the client pays, what our margin is, and why. It is not complicated. It just requires being honest.

Complaint 3: "They disappear after placement"

Placement is not the end. It should be the beginning. But developer after developer described the same pattern: intense attention during the matching process, then radio silence once they start the assignment. No check-ins. No career conversations. No support when things get difficult.

"I had an issue with my team lead two months into the project," one developer told me. "I called my contact at the agency. Voicemail. I emailed. Nothing for a week. When they finally called back, it was to ask if I knew anyone else looking for work."

At InitLabs, we schedule regular check-ins throughout every assignment. Not because we have to. Because that is what partners do. If something is off, we want to know before it becomes a problem.

Complaint 4: "They treat me like inventory"

This one hurt the most to hear. Developers described being "put on the bench," "rotated to a new client," or "allocated to a project" like they were equipment, not people. The language of staffing agencies reveals how they think about the people they represent.

"I am not a resource," a senior engineer told me. "I am not FTE capacity. I am a person who chose this career because I love building things. When an agency treats me like a line item in a spreadsheet, I am done."

The commoditization problem runs deep. Large staffing firms optimize for volume. They need to process hundreds of placements per quarter. At that scale, individual attention becomes impossible. People become profiles. Profiles become inventory. Inventory gets managed, not mentored.

What I built instead

Every complaint I heard pointed to the same root cause: staffing agencies are built to serve clients, and developers are the product. InitLabs flips that. We serve both sides equally because a great match benefits everyone.

Transparent margins. Skill-based profiles built with the developer. Ongoing support after placement. And treating every person like a person, not a label or a line item. None of this is revolutionary. It is just what happens when you actually listen to the people you claim to represent.

If you are a developer reading this and you have your own staffing horror story, I want to hear it. Not because I enjoy the misery, but because every story makes InitLabs a little bit better at doing things differently. Reach out at contact@initlabs.nl.